It’s That Time of Year Again Where We Make Overenthusiastic Goals | Monday Musings

Christmas is over, and as we soak up the last moments of merriment, delicious food and spend the last drops of our money on Boxing Day sales, we prepare ourselves to once again, start our yearly tradition of making a bucket-load of unrealistic goals… Well, for some of us, they are more unrealistic than others.

Personally, I am a bigger fan of making monthly goals to complete during the year, as they feel more achievable than yearly goals which seem to loom over your head, ready to make you feel guilty at every turn. BUT… this year I am actually going to share with you some of my goals for 2016.

2015 was a challenging year. There were positives, but a fairly big amount of storms and hardships. For me, this past year was full of stress, mental instability and anxiety. School was full on, as I completed my last year of high school and did a zillion exams. But despite all of this, 2015 was a year of finding myself and strengthening my spirit. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel, and 2016 is that light.

I am positively excited for 2016. I have so many visions for my blog, but also for my personal life in general. And one of my goals is to become more personal with all of you bookworms. I want to give you guys a bigger glimpse into my life, and while my Spotlight Saturday feature does a little bit of that, I feel like I need to take it a step further. I have a ton of personal goals that I want to share with you too, along with, of course, my reading goals.

Blogging Goals for 2016:

Get personal: I know you guys love my blog for all it’s bookish-ness, and that is not going to change. However, now that I have been blogging for almost a year, I feel like revealing a bit more of myself. I am a fairly private person, so this is a big step for me. I am thinking of introducing two new features on my blog:

Introduce a ‘Josie’s Life Corner’ feature, or something of that sort, where I share the happenings and going ons of my life, either once a week or once a month.

Introduce a Christian weekly feature every Sunday, where I share a little message, encouragement or devotion for the week (I am a Christian, if you did not know already). I have been feeling like doing this for about a month now, and what better time to introduce it than the new year?!

Create a solid blogging schedule: Life is changing. I am no longer a high school student, which means my life schedule everyday will be vastly different. I will be (hopefully) heading off to university next year, and I will be getting a job. Juggling that with my dedication to church and my youth group and social interactions, I’ll have to make sure I have solid times to blog and keep up to date every day.

More collaboration: Whether this be with fellow bloggers, or authors, or anyone in general! I want to do more collaborative blog posts, host and engage myself in more buddy reads and blogging activities/events! Bring it on, 2016! (This is way too ambitious, isn’t it?)

Reading Goals for 2016:

Read 60 books: I don’t want to be too ambitious. I suppose that should be my first resolution: “don’t make unrealistic yearly goals”. Since I completed my challenge of 50 books this year, why not step it up? 10 additional books… That shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Finish the entire Harry Potter series: This is a goal I plan to complete in the month of January. It’s about time I started this series so that I can stop you guys from shrieking at me for not reading it! (I know a few of you who are a little jealous that I’m discovering it for the first time though).

Read all the book series that I really need to read: what a vague statement! I can explain though. I will not name specific books, because I have, in fact, already done so in my Top Five Wednesday post.

Personal Goals for 2016:

Aim to get rid of all my social anxiety: If 2015 has taught me anything, it’s that I should never let my anxiety get the better of me. The consequences are horrible, and I miss out on a ton of new and amazing opportunities. So 2016 will be the year that I rule over my anxiety. I will control it, and not the other way around.

Get my drivers license: I’m seventeen, and all my friends are learning to drive except me. I feel a little left out. Okay, no that’s not the reason I want my license. The sooner I get my license, the closer I am to becoming more independent! Woot woot!

Face at least one of my fears: I have quite a few genuine fears that I could call phobias. This year, I want to conquer at least one. Now THIS is an overambitious goal.

Get into my desired course in university: I still have two/three days before I get my exam results back. By then I will know whether I can get into university. I am actually kind of nervous, but I really hope I get in! Fingers crossed!

Stay dedicated to organisation and my bullet journal: Fun fact, I accidentally destroyed my old notebook that was dedicated to my bullet journal, so I had to start again. I decided to invest in a good notebook to do so, and yesterday I bought a beautiful grid-lined Moleskine notebook (granted it was $35, which is dang expensive, but hey, I’m a crazy notebook and stationery addict, so…) IT’S BEAUTIFUL GUYS. In 2016 I plan to stay organized all year round, and use my bullet journal to the fullest!

Learn guitar or play piano more often: I love singing, and I want to utilize that to the fullest, but I also want to utilise my talent to play instruments – well, I can only play piano, but shh. I love playing piano. It gives me joy. So I want to do a lot more of that in 2016!

2016 is going to be an amazing year. I can feel it. Not just for me, but for everyone. Let’s dive into this new year with excitement and enthusiasm, and let nothing hold us back!

What do you think of the two new features I want to introduce to my blog? Is it a good idea?

38 thoughts on “It’s That Time of Year Again Where We Make Overenthusiastic Goals | Monday Musings”

Love all these resolutions! Personal life glimpses are awesome. I always love reading about book bloggers about more than just the books they read.

Also, that weekly Christian post is the best. I don’t think any book blogger has done it before so yours will be original. Plus, I’m sure many will benefit from a good dose of message from the Scripture. Good luck on these! 🙂

I’m so glad you like them, especially my ideas for my new features! It makes me more excited.
I love seeing into the lives of bloggers too, it’s so nice!
And I’ll be starting my weekly Christian post this Sunday!

I definitely think that your new feature ideas sound wonderful. It is nice to add personal posts on your blog. I think that you have so many fantastic goals for 2016 and I am sure that you will do very well at uni next year. Good luck! 🙂

We have similar goals this year! I get how you feel about final year at school, it’s also my final year and honestly, everyone is expecting so much from me! Good luck for both of us on getting to university!<3 And yes, I also need to learn how to drive 😀 And I'd LOVE to read your Christian weekly features! Can you please include bible passage or your favorite worship song of the week? (I love Hillsong btw) I really can't wait! Best luck for you in 2016!<3

Thank you, RJ. I wish you a fabulous year next year too! I would love to do some collaboration with you! If you have any ideas, send an email my way! (My email is available in my “About” page, if you don’t know).
Woo to schedules!

I think its great that you want more of your personal life in yor blog. We all love to read bookish things but also read about the blogger (at least I do!) One of my goals is more collaboration too! Stay organized will be kind of prove for me and next year I’ll have some changes and challenges but I’m excited for it! 😀

It’s great that you guys are just as interested in the bookish part of my blog as you are about my personal side. Oooh, since you’re interested in collaboration, definitely keep in touch with me, and if you come across any collaboration ideas (or even the other way around), I’ll be here!
I’m excited for you too! Good luck with everything in the new year. 🙂

Yay! I’m so excited for these two new features now. Especially the Christian one. I feel like I want to kind of share my journey with you all, you know? And hopefully try to encourage fellow Christians too.

I defiantly know what its like to be waiting for your results that possibly decide the next step in your future because that was me this year in August when I was collecting my results! I think its great that you have chosen to introduce a personal feature in your blog and it sounds awesome! I hope you achieve all your goals for 2016 and hope 2016 is a fabulous year for you! And don’t worry I am also a stationary addict, I cant ever walk into a stationary store without coming out with something that I’m sure I don’t need but still want it!

Oh, how did your results go?! It truly is a nerve-wracking experience.
I’m glad you like the idea of a new personal feature on my blog, it makes me ten times more excited for it!
Thank you,and I hope your 2016 is wonderful too. Stationary is the BEST. It’s hard to control yourself once you’re surrounded by it all! 😀

I think you’re effort at introducing your personal life is great! I too am a introvert and I found it stupid to tell people about my personal life other than the books I read. But I realised people like me as a person more than as a book reader. So you should definately try it. Great goals! Hope you achieve them all in 2016! 😀

I’m glad you think so, I’ve been feeling like adding it for quite a few weeks now. My blog will be a year old in January, why not introduce something new?
It’s actually so great how people tend to enjoy some of the more personal parts of our blogs, am I right? It makes me excited! Thank you!

Yes I was hesitating for adding a similar post but when I saw that these personal posts fetch good comments and views too. It’s like people like to read them.
All thea best for them. And I’ll be definitely looking forward for them! 😀

Those are such great goals! I’m really excited for these two new features to come up on your blog, I can’t wait to learn more about you Josie! 🙂
I really hope you’ll be able to read 60 books next year. I want to read more, too, but ugh, time is cruelly missing sometimes, it’s so hard. 😦
I’ll cross my fingers for you for university, Josie!! ❤

Thank you, Marie! I’m so glad that you’re looking forward to the new features! I’m going to start working on them as soon as possible, and hopefully have a post up as soon as the new year starts!
I know what you mean! I feel like I’ll end up being too busy to do much reading next year. Hopefully now!
Thank you! I’ll know my results in a day or so now, and I am utterly nervous! ❤